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Broken AgeBroken Age is the story of two teenagers struggling to escape the confines imposed on their lives. Shay Volta lives a sheltered live aboard the spaceship Bossa Nostra but yearns for adventures that are not carefully regulated by the overbearing computer that acts as his mother. Vella Tartine on the other hand lives in a society where she has been given the dubious honor of being sacrificed to a giant monster called Moth Chotra in order to save her village.
I don't want to say anything more about the story except that it is filled with memorable characters and some very clever twists. To say that the game had quite a successful Kickstarter would be an understatement and it meant that developers could deliver the game they envisioned without any meddling from publishers. With Tim Schafer, the man responsible for some of the finest point & click adventures of all time at the helm of the project it also meant a lot of hype. The first thing worth noting about Broken Age is that only the first act is available at the time of writing with the second act promised later this year. This is somewhat disappointing but a necessary evil in order to deliver the game on time. The price of the second act is included with your purchase of the game so you don't have to worry about shelling out cash to finish the story but it also means that there is going to be a wait to see how it all concludes. The first act weights in at about four hours which isn't too bad considering that there is very little filler and the conclusion is epic enough that the second part can't come soon enough. Broken Age is a traditional point and click adventure with visuals that look like an animated painting. The pastel colors and wonderful character designs ties the disparate worlds that the lead characters inhabit together nicely and make the scenes a joy to explore. There isn't a vast amount of locations but each one is infused with a lot of character and personality. From a kooky cult that lives in the clouds to a lumberjack terrified of talking trees, each new scene is guaranteed to contain at least a few chuckles. There is even an easter egg hidden away in the game that allows you to switch the visuals to the pixilated style of the classic era point and click adventures. While the game uses a point and click interface it has been streamlined considerably. There is no list of verbs or icons to select from so you simply click on characters or objects to interact with them. To use or combine inventory items you simply click and drag them into position. It would be criminal to spoil any of the puzzles in the game but suffice to say some are very clever and pretty funny. Expect barfing trees, head shrinking teleportation chambers and talking knives to name just a few memorable elements. The difficulty never reaches the heights of some 90's era point and click adventures but since this is only act one there is still a chance that things might ramp up in part two. You can switch between the two characters at any time which is nice if you get stuck but don't expect any Day of the Tentacle style interaction between the characters. I actually preferred playing through each of their storylines uninterrupted. The soundtrack is made up of some nice orchestral tunes and the voice acting is provided by some pretty big names. Lending her vocals to Vella is Masasa Moyo while Shay is voiced by none other than Elijah Wood. Even relatively minor characters such as Harm'ny Lightbeard the cult leader and Curtis the hipster Lumberjack is voiced by Jack Black and Wil Wheaton respectively. All the voice actors did a pretty good job with their characters and I never had the urge to skip any of the dialogue. The game actually features dialogue trees which are something old school fans will appreciate and the writing remains witty throughout although I expected nothing less from the man that gave the world Full Throttle and Grim Fandango. For players used to the brutal and sometimes illogical puzzles in classic point and click adventures Broken Age might seem a bit too easy at times. None of the puzzles will keep you stumped for too long but it does help to keep the story flowing and cuts down on needless frustration. Broken Age doesn't really shake up the genre but it is still a damn fine game and hopefully the second act will be able to match or exceed the quality of the first.
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System Requirements
TAGS: Broken Age, Shay, Vella, Mog Chothra, Bossa Nostra, Marek,
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